Caldwell, Thomas Wakem

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Barry Cahill, “CALDWELL, THOMAS WAKEM,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/caldwell_thomas_wakem_16E.html
  • DCB profile:
    • Lumberer, farmer, agricultural activist, politician, travelling salesman, and insurance agent; b. 2 May 1867 in Lower Greenfield, N.B., son of Andrew Cunningham Caldwell and Margaret Fulton Wakem; m. first 7 April 1892 Anna (Annie) Henrietta Frances Abeldt (1871–1928) in Menominee, Mich., and they had four sons and one daughter; m. secondly 4 Sept. 1929 Mallissa Mae Clements (1875–1954), widow of Harry Herbert Francisco and Henry Halladay, in Ottawa; they had no children; d. 16 March 1937 in Ottawa and was buried in Florenceville (Florenceville-Bristol), N.B.
    • Caldwell was a proponent of organizing farmers to take collective action that would promote their interests. To some extent this tendency towards involvement in public issues was bred in the bone, his father having represented his parish on the county’s municipal council for 22 years. In May 1918 Caldwell was made president of the newly founded United Farmers of New Brunswick (UFNB); he would remain in the position until at least 1923. At first he did not favour direct political action by the farmers, whose movement in the Maritimes was strongest in his home province, but he gradually came to believe that its agenda could not be advanced otherwise. During World War I Caldwell (whose two eldest sons, Edward Andrew and Paul Wilmot, both enlisted for active service overseas) was probably a Unionist Liberal; in February 1919 the federal government of Sir Robert Laird Borden appointed him chair of the agricultural qualification committee of the Soldier Settlement Board in the province, as well as a member of its loan committee. He remained in that post until September, when federal politics beckoned.
    • Caldwell’s opportunity to run for office came suddenly that August, the Unionist mp for Victoria and Carleton, resigned. Caldwell stood in the resulting by-election for the United Farmers, who had adopted an 11-point political platform the previous March. It was all to no avail: on 27 Oct. 1919 Caldwell’s margin of victory was 3,544 votes.
    • In 1920 Caldwell took part in founding the Progressive Party, of which Crerar became de facto leader, and he was among the 65 Progressive mps returned in the general election of 6 Dec. 1921. Caldwell was the only Progressive candidate east of Ontario to be elected, aided by the decided advantage of being a popular incumbent whose first allegiance was seen to be to the farmers’ movement. 
    • By the mid 1920s the UFNB was in terminal decline and the Progressives were in disarray. In the federal election of 29 Oct. 1925 the party lost well over half the seats won four years earlier, and Caldwell himself was among the casualties. 
    • A somewhat reluctant politician, T. W. Caldwell viewed partisan politics as a necessary evil. He was a pragmatic idealist who believed that the Progressives would be more effective as a national political party than as a regionally based agrarian protest movement. For him the party was, or should have been, the voice of all farmers whose interests were not being adequately addressed by either of the old mainstream parties. Though a limited success as a politician, Caldwell was undoubtedly a major figure in both the United Farmers and the Progressive Party. The UFNB executive was seen as too left-wing by many New Brunswick farmers, however, and Caldwell was squeezed out of politics when his supporters hearkened en masse to a discredited voice from the past.
  • Second Great Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=9704
  • Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/131570812/thomas-wakem-caldwell